Hot Girl > A state of mind that embodies unapologetic confidence
The Feels Guide is a field guide to internet emotion — new feelings, moody machines, emotional design, and wherever, whenever, however emotion and technology mix and mingle.
Being a hot girl is no longer a badge of honor or judgmental label, it’s now more than ever a state of mind popularized on the internet.
🔑 DEFINITION
A state of mind that embodies unapologetic confidence through self-affirming behavior.
See also: Self-care, that girl, main character energy
📜 A BRIEF HISTORY
Since the middle ages, hot has been a common metaphor for burning with desire. But it was in the 1990s, that hot girl entered the pop culture vernacular, usually referring to someone who was not only sexually attractive but also unattainable.
Along the way hot girl became a negative label for women deemed to be ditzy, high maintenance, or promiscuous. The label was associated with pornography (and not in a body-positive way), as in the 2015 Netflix documentary Hot Girls Wanted. A hot mess, which first surfaced in the 2000s, is someone who is all over the place, maybe a literal mess or someone who is always in crisis, but still sexy. By the 2010s, hot girl was more about dragging people down.
The negative connotations of hotness flipped in 2019, when rapper Megan Thee Stallion released the song “Hot Girl Summer”. The song preached that hotness was more a state of mind than specific physical attributes. Hot girls were unapologetically self-confident, shattering the deep-seated expectations placed on women. There’s an element of third-wave feminism in Stallion’s message, too, with a less homogeneous set of expectations for people who identify as women.
As hot girl summer continued into fall, the internet took another phrase from Megan Thee Stallion and turned it into a meme. The “I Can’t Talk Right Now, I’m Doing Hot Girl Shit” is a performance of a mock phone call (old school style with thumb and pinky out, not how Gen Z’s have modified the gesture), telling the person on the other end “I can’t talk right now” because “I’m doing hot girl shit.” The video then cuts to the same person performing the most everyday, banal moments — shaving their upper lip, eating spaghetti, savoring the last few puffs of a joint, or taking a nap.
In 2021, hot-girl walks emerged as a way to build self-confidence through goal-setting and gratitude. Like so many internet emotions, hot girl can be used ironically too where people declare “real hot girls” wear trucker hats or have visible tan lines. In 2022, hot girl is a mood, a vibe, a type of energy, and a state of mind that exudes confidence and normalizes the idea that everyone can be hot.
💬 EXPRESSION
The phrase “I can’t talk right now, I’m doing hot girl shit” works in two ways:
- To convey the hot girl state of mind, when you’re feeling confident just going about your life
- To create a hot girl state of mind by intentionally taking steps to feel more confident
💗 EXPERIENCE
Anyone, be it man, woman or non-binary folks can experience the feeling of being a hot girl. The hot girl knows she’s hot because she’s confident in who she is and knows how to enjoy herself without worrying about what others around her think. So the hot girl state of mind is also a feeling of liberation, taking back ownership of the meaning of the word.
❝ QUOTE
“Confidence literally starts with yourself. You have to go look in the mirror at yourself and if you don’t like what you see, you’re going to give off that energy.” Megan Thee Stallion
💡 BIG PICTURE
The hot girl trend started as a relatable way for people to take control of the entire concept of what qualifies as hot. The idea continues to evolve into a more empathetic and inclusive way of building confidence and connecting with others over the not-so-great moments of day-to-day existence.
Hot girl is ultimately a state of mind that taps into positive emotions, like gratitude, bravery, confidence, and joy, and can be harnessed for whatever purposes you see fit.
🤔 LEARN MORE
- Watch Megan Thee Stallion’s Girls in the Hood video with the line that started it all — “real hot girl shit”
- Learn how the hot girl meme challenges the male gaze in Vice
- Read Danya Isssawi’s discussion of the social media movement that is “hot girl” in The New York Times
- Try listening to these positive podcasts on your next hot girl walk
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Me: Can’t talk right now, I’m doing hot girl shit
Also me:
Stay well, everyone!
xoxo
Pamela 💗
Want a preview of next week’s emotion? Subscribe to the Friday newsletter for that and more stories about tech and emotion.
The guide behind the guide
I’m Pamela Pavliscak, a tech emotionographer who studies emotion on the internet. I’m writing a book, All the Feels (Algonquin, 2024), about how technology is changing our emotional life — mostly for the better. I run an emotion tech consultancy called Subjective Labs and teach emotional design at the Pratt Institute in NYC. And I’m starting to share what I learn here and on Substack, Instagram, and Twitter.
